Detroit Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan indicated that the club is still searching for an identity in the midst of their four-game losing skid.
The Detroit Red Wings are now over a quarter of the way through their centennial NHL campaign, and their first full season under the leadership of head coach Todd McLellan.
McLellan, who was hired nearly a full year ago to bring a new level of accountability for a team looking to take things to the next level, appeared to have gotten through to his players when he directly challenged them following their disappointing 5-1 setback on Oct. 9 in their Home Opener to the Montreal Canadiens.
The Red Wings won five straight games after their initial setback, and sported an 8-4 record through their first 12 contests.
But the road has been filled with bumps in recent weeks, as the Red Wings are 4-4-2 in their last 10 games, including four consecutive setbacks that have brought back the unpleasant memories of their defensive inefficiencies that have hampered them in recent seasons.
Bookmark The Hockey News Detroit Red Wings team site to stay connected to the latest news, game-day coverage, and player features.
Following Detroit's 6-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday afternoon, defenseman Moritz Seider said the Red Wings need to do a better job in playing to their identity.
What is their identity? According to head coach Todd McLellan, it's still a work in progress.
"I think we're more on the second part, still trying to look for it," McLellan said about Detroit's search for an identity. "Earlier in the year, I talked about identity and pace, and I do think we can be a quick, fast team that can get on top of people, both offensively and defensively."
"Some nights we really bring it, and some nights, we really struggle with it," he continued. "But the rest of our game will come from that. Can we defend better? Certainly we can, but we can do it faster and quicker. I think anytime a coach or media people talk about pace, they always just think on the offensive side, the attack point. We can be that defensively as well."
Following their four straight defeats, the Red Wings have seen their goal differential drop to -13, which is 28th overall out of the 32 NHL clubs. While McLellan appreciates Detroit's ability to create offensive chances, they surrender too many to the opposition.
"We create a lot of chances, but we don't quite score on enough of them," he said. "But we give up enough that we're getting scored on them, and that's why we're not winning. We gotta fix it."
During his season-ending media availability session in April, Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman spoke about the importance of being a harder team to play against.
There is still plenty of time left in the season, but there also remains plenty of work to do on the part of Detroit's players to make that vision a reality.
Never miss a story by adding us to your Google News favorites!
For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum